The future of home video limps forward at CES 2012

The future of home video is coming, it's just taking longer than you'd expect.

(Credit:
Matthew Moskovciak/CNET)

The idea of bringing the web to your TV has been around since the mid-90s and it seems like every
CES in the past few years has been "the" year for Smart TV.
Now with the dust settling on CES 2012, the home video landscape looks
surprisingly like it did before CES, albeit with a few bright spots. But
any streaming videophile (i.e. me) who was hoping for some major
progress (and maybe even a few surprises) at this year's show was likely
more disappointed than otherwise.

Same Google TV, new boxes
Many have hoped that Google TV would be the ultimate next-gen iteration
of the home video experience, but I'm no more confident in the platform
after CES 2012. Yes, there are new products and some of them are significantly better (in particular Sony's NSZ-GP9 Blu-ray player
with voice search), but what Google TV really needs is an improved
interface, more apps, and less bugs. The only real Google TV bright spot
is forthcoming support for the OnLive gaming service, although many of the details are still unclear.Blu-ray takes a back seat
Blu-ray innovation was effectively dead this year. Year-after-year there
have been big improvements to Blu-ray players at CES, particularly the
built-in content suites, but CES 2012 was more of the same, aside from
one-off features like Samsung's HDMI-switching BD-E6500 and Panasonic's new touchpad remote.
That's too bad, as Blu-ray players remain one of the better home
theater values, capable of playing back all your legacy media, plus new
streaming services. There's plenty that needs to be improved
(cross-platform search, voice search, etc.), but it doesn't look like it
will happen in 2012.Cable and satellite get a facelift
Satellite TV feels like old tech these days and the Dish Hopper DVR
is particularly a throwback, with its mammoth 2TB hard drive capable of
recording all network primetime television for eight days at a time.
(Couldn't they just store a single copy in the cloud?)
But satellite/cable companies are looking forward too, with both DirecTV and Verizon
announcing the ability to access content via apps available on TVs and
home theater products. Adding more value for existing monthly
subscriptions via these new apps is one way cable/satellite can keep the
cord-cutters at bay.

Hands-on with the Roku Streaming Stick

The future The two most forward-looking products at the show were Roku's Streaming Stick and the Simple.TV
over-the-air DVR. The crazy small size of the Roku Streaming Stick is
cool, but what's more interesting is how Roku sees the Smart TV concept
as effectively broken. The Streaming Stick highlights the ugly truth
that all those glitzy Smart TVs on the CES 2012 show floor will be
out-of-date in just a few years. Roku says buy a "dumb monitor"
instead and get your updated streaming apps with a dongle. Sounds like a
better plan to me, although the requirement of an MHL port means the
Stick won't take off for a couple years.
Simple.TV inverts the
usual "DVR with apps" scenario to "DVR as an app". It lets you set up a
single Single.TV box to "grab" over-the-air content, then you can watch
recordings and live TV throughout the house on supported devices, which
will include Roku,
iPad, Boxee and Google TV. And if you pay $5 a month for the premium service, you can watch your TV outside the home network, a la Slingbox.
It's an intriguing strategy and as much as cord-cutters want to go
all-streaming, all-the-time, most TV viewers still need an over-the-air
"lifeline" for sports and big live events like the Oscars.
The
future of home video is coming sooner rather than later, but there still
hasn't been a single killer product that brings cord-cutting to the
masses. From the vantage point of the end of CES 2012, this year looks
to be another modest step forward for Smart TV and streaming video, but
not much closer to the unified TV nirvana promised by Google TV and
others.